Digging into the history of Matilda Koontz Jackson, I’ve discovered intriguing pieces of local history. One is a first-person account by Edward Huggins, overseer of the Hudson’s Bay Co.’s Puget Sound Agricultural Co. at Nisqually, of his travels south in the early 1850s to the company’s Cowlitz Farm near present-day Toledo. It was originally published in The Oregonian in 1900 and republished in The Chehalis Bee-Nugget in 1922.
The English-born Huggins, who became a naturalized American citizen, wrote in detail about the terrible road through low, swampy Saunders Bottom near present-day Chehalis.
“It was almost impassable, being in many places little better than a lake, its soil being of a sticky, stiff, muddy character. Why, even when I went through it, in the month of September, in places it was almost impassable.”
He shared stories of people becoming stuck in the mud. One man on horseback, leading another horse, found a fellow covered in mud to his waist and offered him the use of the horse he was leading.
“The bemuddled man thanked him, declining his kind offer, and informed him that he ‘had a much better horse under him.’ How the man got out of the hole with his horse, the story does not say.
“One time I was wading through the bottom, myself and horse covered with mud, when I came upon old John Sutherland, a man well known to many old and new settlers in Pierce County, with an overturned wagon and four horses in the middle of one of the worst mud holes. Legs, shoulders and sides of bacon were scattered all about and poor John was in a deplorable condition. He was hauling a load of bacon belonging to John R. Jackson, a well-known farmer, living near the Cowlitz prairie. John took it all very philosophically and declined my offer of assistance, saying that another team would be along shortly, from which he would get assistance. I never heard how he got out of the hole, or whether he succeeded in ‘saving his bacon.’
“Two or three years after my first trip across this bottom, the worst of the mud holes were corduroyed, which at high stages of water would be floated out of place, and the road would then be worse than ever.”
Huggins described arriving at Chehalis founders Schuyler and Eliza Saunders’ homestead around 4 p.m.
“I was feeling tired and so did my old horse, and I obtained permission from Saunders to remain there all night. The place was very primitive, a small log house and a very small log barn. Saunders lived there with his wife, and I think there were no children.
“He was a man of about 40 years of age, I should think, stout and strongly built and not at all a bad looking man. He was a wonderful talker, and it struck me that from the manner of his behavior and style of talk that he was either half drunk or nearly crazy.
“I had a scant supper there, and before dark I told ‘Saunders’ I would like to sleep, being very tired and stiff from the effects of the unusually long ride. He led me to the log barn and, pointing to a heap of pea straw, said that was the only spare bedroom the establishment boasted. I think I settled my bill before parting with him, as I intended leaving that unsavory place very early the next morning.
“I made a hole in the straw and crept in, feeling certain that tired nature would soon assert itself and sleep possess me. But, alas! I reckoned falsely, for above my head, upon a beam, slept or roosted some of the chickens of the place, and I found it impossible to get any sleep during the night.”
No wonder Matilda Jackson was considered such a gracious hostess — perhaps by comparison.
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Julie McDonald, a personal historian from Toledo, may be reached at memoirs@chaptersoflife.com.
